Paperless Office: These steps will get you in the right direction

Paper and pen can be practical in many situations – quickly jotting down some thoughts, taking down a phone message, or leaving a note for a colleague. You'll likely find one or more sticky notes on almost every computer screen in German offices – we're still quite analog here, and that makes many things disorganized. In this article, we'll look at how you can transition your office to paperless, step by step!

"Getting bogged down in details": Disadvantages of paper in the office

Like everything, the paperless office has its pros and cons. Paper has proven itself as a means of communication over the past centuries, and now it's supposed to be replaced by new technology? – this quickly makes older people skeptical. Therefore, let's first look at the specific disadvantages of paper and why a digital solution can be more sensible.

Paper and small notes are always location-bound and probably not available when you spontaneously find yourself in another building or in your home office. To always have every tiny note with you, an immense organizational effort would be required, which is hardly realistic in everyday life. You're in the home office and need to find a specific invoice in one of your company's folders – you already have to call a colleague to do this task for you – the first reason for a paperless office.

In a paperless or digital office, all notes, documents, and idea boards are organized in a central document management system. All company employees have access to this, or to corresponding sub-areas. You now create all notes on a tablet or laptop and upload them to the appropriate folder – even if it's just a small sticky note for a colleague, which you can then assign to them. Documents from other departments of the company, such as accounting, can then also be conveniently retrieved from anywhere, as they are stored online – thus, the paperless office alleviates a lot of tedious back and forth.

The larger the company, the more suitable a paperless office becomes. Because in a large company, vast amounts of all kinds of documents circulate daily, which need to be sorted and filed. It can quickly happen that an important letter from the tax office or other documents disappear into the depths of a file folder – where you then have to spend an hour of your actual working time trying to retrieve them.

In a paperless office, you can easily search for all types of documents – whether by keyword, date, or type of correspondence. If everything has been stored and recorded correctly, you'll find every letter in a flash when it matters. Thus, the paperless office not only saves your nerves but also prevents you from working overtime due to endless searching.

Of course, a paperless office is also GoBD-compliant. The legislator even stipulates that documents can be destroyed after proper digitization. This saves you a lot of storage space and makes it easier for authorities to check your business or present certain documents if necessary. Paper originals only need to be kept in their "raw form" in very few exceptional cases.

The demands on a modern office have increased enormously in the last ten years. The gradual, ever-increasing transition to paperless offices is also part of this, even if it involves some effort. But other aspects also represent a modern and sustainable company, for example, ergonomic and adjustable office furniture from Deskspace.

The height-adjustable desk is standard in a modern office today. Feel free to find out more on our product page or in one of our many Deskspace guides!

Step by step to the paperless office

Transitioning to a paperless office doesn't happen overnight. Some foundations need to be laid so that operations can truly function without file folders and the like. In this section of the text, we will therefore look at what you should prepare and consider when you switch to a paperless office.

You should store all your documents in a cloud. Large corporations sometimes develop their own internal systems for this, but cloud services from well-known providers also offer sufficient security. You need a cloud so that you can truly access your data anytime, anywhere. Generally, however, it must be said that no cloud system is 100% secure against hacker attacks – but with large providers like Dropbox or Google Drive, you are still relatively well protected.

Tip: Use various test versions of the providers in advance. This way, you can find out which cloud you get along with best and which system you can trust.

As a next step, we recommend a very thorough inventory of all documents in the company. It must not happen that a letter or an invoice is not yet recorded – this applies to both incoming and outgoing documents. Internal company notes must also be digitized and possibly assigned to the corresponding employees so that the paperless office can function and problems do not arise.

A checklist and a stamp for digitized documents can help you keep a precise overview.

Consistency is extremely important in a paperless office. At first, you might have trouble getting used to digital processes and prefer to print and file invoices – but you have to get away from that. If you want to edit a document, you now have to save it as a PDF and edit it with a program with full-text recognition. Thanks to this, you will quickly find the document again, and tedious searching in file folders will be eliminated.

If you want to switch to a paperless office, you absolutely need a high-quality and up-to-date document scanner. Not every letter or invoice arrives by mail, and with it, digitizing only takes a few seconds. Afterwards, you can immediately insert the document into the correct program and assign it to the appropriate category. Some document scanners even work with programs that have full-text recognition – so they are automatically named.

These were the most important steps to a sustainable, paperless office. Through step-by-step digitization, you'll experience less stress, and everyday office life will become a little easier each day. Tedious searching is eliminated, communication is simpler, and an overview is created more quickly – on the whole, the paperless office is the right path for most companies!

Would you like to learn more about how to set up a modern and sustainable office? Then feel free to check out the Deskspace guides. Here you will find articles on workplace health as well as many furnishing tips!